•» O <* *•••• *o* 

*<y c o " • « <*>*. 





^ V 




"V . * • O - ^ <*> 







• ^^ ° 







. * » A 



4^ »' 



k" *K 









.«" «' 






<^ 



•o <j> ^ *** 




r oV 



^ -1 



aO^., 




^6* 



-nq* 



;♦ .«>* 







•VI'* <^. 




C: V •« V : 










: +^ < 



^°^ . 



w ^f»* y V*^ 4 -°° 








.O v t 



"0« 



U. 







.1* . 













A6< 




q. * © M o ° «0r 




,% \^ 











°o '..To' -0 
^L'* <^ a0 * * * ■ 















/■v -J 



. » * A 










4°* 






TALKS 
ON EXPRESSION 



BY 
LELAND T. POWERS 









Copyright, 191 7, 
By Leland T. Powers 



fl 

FEB 15 1917 



THOMAS GROOM & CO., INC 

Boston, Mass. 
191 7 



0CI.A455547 



Talks on Expression 



Foreword 

IT is admittedly true that the methods and 
processes of education are really successful 
when they serve to clarify thought — and 
then only. 

Learning cannot be " plastered on"; real 
knowledge cannot even be imparted, but 
thought can be clarified. 

This of course follows the premise that every 
individual possesses at the outset, in his own 
right, all the knowledge he will ever express. 
Hence educational systems at their utmost 
can do no more than clear away the debris of 
false or hazy thinking and awaken the student 
to a realization of his inherent birthright of 
intelligence. 

But this is the greatest service possible. 
Mankind instinctively rises to bless, as its 
real benefactors, the men and women who 
through the clarity of their own vision have 
dissipated the confusion and darkness which 
were puzzling and halting the aspiration of 
the people. 

There are a few great figures in the world 

5 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

of science, another group in the realm of 
religion, still another in the field of art, whom 
the race remembers with gratitude because 
they succeeded in educating their fellows into 
a clearer view of the realities. They had, in 
their respective spheres, clarified the thought 
of men. 

Having been intimately associated with the 
author of this little book and having known, 
first hand, the confusion into which most of 
the thought regarding the art of the Spoken 
Word had fallen before he undertook to clar- 
ify it, I crave the privilege of voicing, not alone 
my own appreciation, but the gratitude of 
thousands who through this man's clear vision 
have found the way. 

It is a cause for satisfaction, deep and sin- 
cere, that Leland Powers has been persuaded 
to put into print his unique and scientific un- 
derstanding which, worked out in practice, 
has made him for the past twenty years, the 
recognized standard for all who aspire to 
eminence in the art of the Spoken Word. 

PHIDELAH RICE, JR. 
6 



The Scientific Side of 
Expression 

EXPRESSION to be in the realm of art 
must first or last reach that realm by 
the path of science. Consequently in 
the art of the Spoken Word the processes, 
in order to be art processes, must first be- 
come conscious processes. The " how " and 
the " why " as well as the " what " must be 
recognized and understood before the art 
stage is reached. 

In order to scientifically understand any 
manifestation, the nature of its cause must 
be understood, and the laws by which the 
cause embodies itself must be recognized. 

Back of all expression there are three activi- 
ties at work as cause. And these three ac- 
tivities are three factors of one complete 
trinity, the mind. These factors are, first, 
the mental concept which gives birth to the 
desire to express; second, the desire which 

7 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

gives birth to the impulse to express; and 
third, the ability or life which carries the im- 
pulse into expression. These three activities 
are co-essential, co-existent and co-operative. 
None of them can exist in its wholeness with- 
out the other two and each one exists in the 
other two. I repeat, they are three activities 
of one thing, the mind. 

The cause, therefore, of right expression is 
mental. Right expression is an act of the 
mind and it contains its own proofs that it is 
so. If a mind-action or thought-process falls 
short of expression it is because its third 
factor is dormant or has been overdominated 
by one or both of the other factors and so 
the thought-process is left unfinished and un- 
symmetrical. Complete thought-action, or un- 
derstanding, comes only from carrying the 
conception through desire or purpose into ac- 
tion, or demonstration — the actual doing or 
living the truth. This must be so because 
the very mind-activity employed in carrying 
purpose into actual performance is itself a 
necessary part of the understanding process, 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

and if it does not take part and the concep- 
tion is not carried into performance, then an 
important and component factor of complete 
understanding has been left dormant and un- 
enlisted and so only partial understanding 
can have been experienced. 

In an address delivered at the Commence- 
ment exercises at Wellesley College in 1914, 
Mr. John H. Finley, Commissioner of Edu- 
cation in the state of New York, said: "I 
have attempted a catalogue of those who do 
not tell the truth ; first are those who do not 
know the truth and tell it, if ever, by accident ; 
second are those who know the truth, but, 
knowing it, have no wish to tell it or refuse 
to tell it ; and third are those who know the 
truth, or who know it vaguely, and who de- 
sire to tell it, but know not how to tell it. 
These intimate the three ends of education: 
to know the truth, to be willing to tell it, 
and then to be able to speak #• " (The italics 
are mine.) 

Conventional methods of education, dealing 
as they do with the science of the reflective 

9 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

process of the thought (the finding out of 
the truth), and the choosing process (the 
desire to tell the truth), and leaving undealt- 
with the science of the act or the expressive 
process (the ability to speak the truth), are 
really training but two-thirds of the mind-en- 
tity. The reflective, analytical process is 
trained ; the ethical, volitional, choosing proc- 
ess is trained; a proper consciousness of 
right and wrong, of what is worthy, high and 
fine as opposed to what is unworthy and un- 
desirable, is cultivated ; laws relating to these 
two processes have been discovered, formu- 
lated and taught, and a student is trained to 
that extent according to scientific methods. 
In the third process, that of bringing con- 
cept and purpose into working contact with the 
world of other men, which surely is the end 
desired, the student's mind is too often left 
untrained and uncultivated. 

The thought thus two-thirds trained does 
force for itself an expression, an embodiment ; 
it is bound to do so or it would be but a lazy, 
boneless, lifeless dream or sentiment; but 

10 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the birth, — the taking on an embodiment, — 
the final, vital act of the thought's coming out 
into the world as an entity and living force, 
in other words, the speaking of the truth, has 
had little scientific help from conventional 
training and education in colleges and uni- 
versities. 

It seems that no governing laws have been 
thought to be existent or necessary for the 
training of the expressional function of the 
mind. The teaching of expression along 
scientific lines and methods finds no place 
in most of the universities. The reason 
may be that it is not generally known that 
expression has its science. It is generally 
thought that the expressional process is a 
natural process and will take care of itself. 
As to that, so are thinking and choosing 
natural processes, but they cannot be left 
without training; they are carefully looked 
after and scientifically trained, but the third 
factor of the thought — the expressional — is 
generally left to shift for itself, to work with 

dull, awkward, disobedient tools, to learn in 

ii 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the wasteful school of experience. We are 
taught how to think in and how to think 
around and about but we are not taught how to 
think out. 

The questions arise: can expression be 
taught scientifically, and what principles 
have been discovered and what laws un- 
covered in this realm of conscious ex- 
pression. 

This principle has been discovered: — in 
right expression, not only is the cause, the 
starting point, in mind, but that fact must be 
evident in the expressional act In expression 
all causation is mental and consequently all 
expression is mental. 

In the present stage of our development the 
mind, in its expressional act, uses body or 
material for the embodiment of its ideas, and 
here arises the conflict and the necessity of 
knowing the law in order to obey it. This 
body, which in our special art the thought 
uses in its manifestation, makes a claim to 
an existence of its own apart from its master, 
the mind. It claims to have life and sensation 

12 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

springing from its own nerve-centers. It 
claims to be an animal and it rebelliously in- 
sists on expressing its own life and sensation, 
whether or not the expression interferes with 
and belies the plan and purpose of the right- 
ful master, mind. 

If this servant, the body, and by body I 
mean voice and body, were absolutely obedi- 
ent and fluid to the vitalized thought, our 
brother to whom we desire to communicate 
our spiritual vision would be conscious of the 
body only as a component part of the informing 
thought. In other words, the body, in pro- 
portion as it is trained to give up its own 
claims and become obedient to right mind- 
action, gets away from between the thought 
of the speaker and the thought of the listener, 
tends to become transparent, to take on the 
form of the thought, and hence to disappear, 
instead of forcing thought's expression awry, 
twisting and deforming it, forcing it through 
clogged and constricted channels to a false 
expression. 

The latest work being done in the science 
13 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

of expression has grown out of the recog- 
nition of this struggle between the real vitality 
of the thought and the mock vitality of the mock 
thought and the drawing of a distinguishing 
line between the two. 

It must be remembered that mock vitality 
is nothing more than excitement and the 
mock thought nothing else than sensa- 
tion. 

I have found in my experience that the 
counterfeits are quite generally mistaken, 
even by intelligent people, for the real thing. 
It is not easy to distinguish in every case be- 
tween them. It is by their effects that a 
listener can distinguish the real from the 
counterfeit. Right expression, the act of 
the intelligence, awakens thought in the 
listener's mind. Wrong expression, the act 
of sensation, or mock-mind, excites the listen- 
er, inhibits his clear thought and leaves him 
with a sense of fatigue. 

The recognition and acknowledgment of 
this strife between the real mentality and the 
counterfeit at once draws a line along one 

14 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

side or the other of which must be ranged all 
the theories and methods of teaching art. 

The problem which confronts us in the study 
of expression from a scientific standpoint is, 
how to be able to recognize the innumera- 
ble claims which the body makes that its mo- 
tions, forms and sounds are the language of 
right mind-action, and to promptly place them 
where they belong, as the actions of the mock- 
mind resident in nerve centers and sensation. 

In order to illustrate I will take a concrete 
example: — I am an orator standing before 
my audience. I know surely one thing ; I de- 
sire to communicate through my speech and 
action a thought and a purpose so that a 
thought and a purpose may be awakened in 
the mind of the hearer. In order to be right, 
my thought must be clear and my purpose un- 
selfish. The scientific relation of the obedi- 
ent body to a consciousness of clear thought 
and unselfish purpose is absolute poise and 
repose; not the poise and repose of an ox 
in his stall but of the soaring eagle. That is 
the law. It is my problem, as an intelligent 

15 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

orator, to see that my body obeys it. If now 
I find I am standing on both feet separated 
far enough to make a broad base, I can know 
that however clearly my words are stating 
my thought and however sympathetically my 
voice is sounding my purpose, my body is 
speaking its own claim that inertia is poise 
and repose, and that firmness of establish- 
ment depends upon the breadth of base. 
That is the material belief; that is why, 
probably, an animal feels safer on four legs 
than on two. The resort to broad base is 
always the indication of physical weakness, 
or of the belief that power resides in the 
earth, so to speak ; that it is antagonistic and 
must be resisted. Spiritual understanding 
realizes that all power is from above, and that 
it is infinite and loving, surrounding and up- 
holding. Intelligent thought realizes power; 
non-intelligent sensation fears power and re- 
sists it. The first is symbolized in attitude 
by the narrow base. The second by the 
broad base. 
Again : — if I find I am constantly changing 

16 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

my weight from one foot to the other, my 
body is saying that nervousness is vitality of 
thought. If I find my muscles tense and 
rigid, my body is claiming that power is in 
muscle. 

The untrained body, left to itself, will always 
express its own excitements and sensations 
instead of allowing the rightful embodiment 
and expression of the mind's plan and pur- 
pose. This fact must be faced if expression 
is to be scientifically taught. 

To summarize : — Right expression has its 
beginning in mentality and makes its appeal 
to thought. Wrong expression has its be- 
ginning in sensation and makes its appeal to 
sensation. Wrong expression is not so much 
the opposite of right expression as it is its 
counterfeit. It is using nerve-excitement in 
place of dynamic thought. It is mistaking 
reflex action for thinking and feeling, and 
muscular tension for spiritual power. 

If we claim there is a science of expression 
it means that we claim there have been dis- 
covered certain fundamental laws in accord- 

17 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

ance with which an individual can be trained 
to distinguish between the true and false in 
causation, and to know the steps by which he 
has arrived, or can arrive, at the desired end 
in expression; which end is, that the vital- 
ity of his thought, the embodiment of his pur- 
pose, be not interfered with by any material 
obstruction. 

The study of the science of right expres- 
sion is the effort to learn the laws which 
govern the outgoing act — the expressive act 
— of the thought; to learn the laws which 
govern embodiment, and to learn to distin- 
guish between the thought's vitality and the 
body's sensation or nerve excitement: it is 
the effort to clearly understand what the 
thought wants to do and to distinguish between 
the "want to do" of the thought and the 
" want to do " of the body. The first is the 
immediate cause of all right expression; the 
second is the cause of wrong expression, 
whether in life or in art. 

This " want to do " of the body necessitates 
another effort on the part of the student of 

18 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

right and intelligent expression, viz., to train 
the body to obey the laws of the outgoing 
thought so that it will reflect the thought's 
form and embody the mind's act. 



19 



Vitality of Thought 

IS it not true, that thought, however high, 
however spiritual, serves no end nor no- 
body, not even the thinker, until it is dy- 
namic enough to express itself ? Thought is 
not recognizable, its existence even cannot be 
proven until it realizes its power and proves 
its power by embodying itself. This embody- 
ing process is just as much a mental function 
as the thinking ; it is thought manifesting its 
life, proving its ability — its vitality. Every 
printed page, great sermon, picture, statue, 
symphony, cathedral, is the realization and 
proof of the vitality of some one man's thought. 
The man who stood looking at Saint Paul's 
Cathedral in London and exclaimed, " Just 
think! All this was once just lines on a piece 
of paper! " might have gone one step further 
and said, " All this was once just a thought in 
some one man's mind." Here is the point: 
this thought, first as an unoutlined concept 
in one man's mind, then as lines on a piece of 

20 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

i 

paper and at last the gigantic cathedral, pos- 
sessed in the beginning and all the time a 
certain something, a certain dynamic func- 
tion by virtue of which it was able to make 
itself visible. 

But what of the inarticulate souls ? What 
of the "dumb, inglorious Miltons," the men 
to whom great visions come, but who are 
never able to embody the vision ? Think of 
the poems dreamed but never written; the 
sermons planned but never preached; the 
good deeds willed but never performed! 
Why? Because of the seeming lack of that 
same certain something, that dynamic func- 
tion without which the thought is never a 
whole thought, never a completed thing. 

Expression is thought completing itself — a 
mental act altogether. I was about to say, 
expression is thought completed, but to 
my understanding the thought is not com- 
pleted until its expression has awakened 
thought in the other man's mind. Even then 
it is only on the way. 

It might be interesting now to ask, — is 

21 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

this certain, dynamic something which was 
present in the thought of the man who could 
build a cathedral, and seemingly absent in 
the thought of most of us, really absent or 
is it just dormant and undeveloped ? And if 
it be present but dormant and undeveloped 
can it be awakened and developed so that 
your thought and my thought may at last em- 
body themselves in terms of harmony and 
power? And is the training worth while? 
To answer the last question first, it surely 
is worth while, if any kind of mental training 
is worth while. The development, by some 
means or other, of this vitality of the thought, is 
essential if the whole thought is ever to be 
available and effective. The end reached may 
not be the ability to carve a statue, write a 
book, compose a symphony, but the end in 
view is to render the individual able to bring 
his mental and moral resources into effective 
relation to the world of other men, whatever 
may be the nature of the individual's activity ; 
and the bringing about of this desirable result 
with the least waste of power, and the clearing 

22 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

and straightening of the channel of the out- 
going thought, so that its plan may not be 
distorted nor its purpose obstructed, is an 
end to be reached only by the scientific train- 
ing of the expressional function of the thought. 
If that end can be attained, the scientific 
training is decidedly worth while. 

It used to be thought and taught that al- 
though concept and purpose were activities 
of the mind and- the sources of all expression, 
yet, when it came to the expressional act, 
that particular function fell outside the mind's 
province and belonged entirely to the physi- 
cal activity. Expression is, however, a mental 
activity. It exists because thought exists. 
Without thought there can be no right expres- 
sion and, conversely, without expression there 
can be no complete thought. Expression is 
not the effect of the thought; it is thought's 
effectivity ; it is the thought in its vital, culmi- 
nating flower, demonstrating and proving its 
own existence. The sun furnishes an ex- 
cellent illustration or figure. The sun's rays 
are its expression ; its only means of proving 

23 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

its existence. Light rays, heat rays, actinic 
rays are not effects of the sun, they are the 
sun's effectivity. The effect is produced by 
them. So the thought's expression, instead 
of being an effect, is the function of the 
thought which produces the effect. 

As has been before stated, the thought's 
trinity can be considered simply as follows: 

i. The reflective, intellectual function, . . . 
which conceives and plans. 

2. The affective, volitional function, . . . 

which chooses and decides. 

3. The effective, vital function, . . . which 

carries into expression the decision 
and plan. 

These three factors are co-essential, co-ex- 
istent, and co-operative. They form one 
whole mind-activity. 

In some mentalities the expressive func- 
tion may be partially dormant, or undeveloped; 
in another mentality the reflective, or the 
affective factor, may be partially dormant or 

undeveloped, but if the individual be capable 

24 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

of any thought whatever, all three factors are 
there. 

In every whole mind-action the three factors 
are taking part, one dominant and the other 
two subordinate. In different individuals 
different factors are habitually dominant, and 
this fact is the jreason why one individual is 
said to be a man of reflection, another a man 
of impulse, while the third is called a man of 
action. 

In symmetrical, right activity, whether in 
art, religion, daily living and work, in whatever 
field of activity one finds his expression, the 
whole thought, in its three introactive func- 
tions, must find itself embodied and reflected. 
When the thought has thus proved its ex- 
istence and vitality, the reflective factor in- 
dicates its presence by the fact that the ex- 
pression has a recognizable form, shape and 
plan, whether the expression be a poem, a 
bridge, a painting, whether it be teaching, 
acting, living; without form and plan there 
is, in the expression, no proof of intelligence. 

The affective factor indicates its presence 
25 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

by the fact that the expression has unfold- 
ment-in-sequence, or purposeful harmony, that 
the shape is symmetrical, and that the plan 
shows an end in view and unfolds to that end. 

The vital factor indicates its presence by the 
expression as a whole, the demonstrated ability 
to carry the plan and purpose into fulfillment. 

A WHOLE THOUGHT is dynamic, cre- 
ative. It can remove mountains, dig canals, 
discover continents, redeem the world. 

POINTS 

i. There is a certain function of thought 
that may be called the thought's vitality 
— ability to do. 

2. This function can be awakened and 

trained. 

3. Training and development come through 

practice rightly directed. 

4. This right direction depends upon the 

recognition and application of a prin- 
ciple; also the recognition of the 
difference between sensation and vital 
thought as the cause of expression. 
26 



Media 

EVERY thought, in order to prove its ex- 
istence, is obliged to overcome and 
master material in some form or other. 
Thought in its expressive act, making its ap- 
peal to intelligence, does so in spite of material, 
never with its willing aid. 

When thought does seize on material and 
fuse it into embodiment the proof that it is 
right thought and right expression is that the 
media used, whether spoken words, the 
printed page, paint and canvas, marble or the 
voice and body, cease to be apparent as 
material ; they become transparent, they dis- 
appear, just as the surface of a good mirror 
disappears, giving place to the reflected image. 

The material medium in right expression 
gets out of the way, ceases to obtrude, just in 
degree as it is correctly and deftly used. In 
other words, — just in degree as it is obe- 
dient to its rightful master, the mind. When 
rightfully mastered and obedient the mate- 

27 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 



rial medium becomes de-materialized; it 
becomes the " outer end " of the active, rec- 
ognizable thought ; it is expression. Expres- 
sion is not the material medium in action, it 
is vital thought de-materializing the inter- 
vening, interfering material. The material 
medium of itself is always, either passively or 
actively, resistant to right expression. 

In the case of the sculptor and his marble 
block the passive resistance is obvious. Im- 
bedded in the block the sculptor sees his 
angel imprisoned. The marble does not 
want to yield her up. It knows nothing of 
any angel. It knows only marble and doesn't 
want to be broken. But the sculptor ham- 
mers it, chisels it, rubs it and polishes it, 
does away with every bit of superfluous, in- 
terfering marble, until at last the angel stands 
free, no longer marble to the intelligent gaze 
of the observer but the sculptor's vision 
embodied. 

In serving the idea marble became trans- 
figured. 

In our own field of expression, The Spoken 
28 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Word, where the material media are the 
living voice and the animate body, it would 
seem that these, surely, must be fluidly re- 
sponsive to every varying phase of intelligence 
and artistic purpose. The truth is, however, 
that only as the voice and body are coerced 
and trained into obedience to vitalized thought 
and only as the expressional function of the 
mind is awakened and trained to command 
and handle the voice and body correctly and 
deftly, do they do anything but interfere with 
the mental concept and purpose. In their un- 
trained states, the voice and body are the most 
rebellious and deceitful of all the media right 
expression has to employ. The more they are 
freed in their own physical realm, without the 
government of intelligence being established, 
the more obstructive they become to right ex- 
pression. 

The cause of this is, as has been stated in 
another chapter, but which cannot be re- 
peated too often; this living instrument 
seems to insist on having an intelligence and 

power of its own, an intelligence resident 

29 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

in its own nerve-centers and a power in its 
muscular tensions, and this counterfeit in- 
telligence is forever trying to hypnotize both 
speaker and hearer into mistaking it for real 
intelligence and is so often successful, on 
the stage, in the pulpit, at the bar, on the pub- 
lic platform, that oratory, thus misconceived, 
has fallen into disrepute and rightly so. The 
orator's power has come to be associated too 
much with physical excitement and too little 
with dynamic thought. Public speakers are 
too often content to make this physical appeal. 
It is sometimes cloaked with the name, per- 
sonal magnetism. It is a physical appeal to 
a physical response. Speakers who depend 
on this animal activity for power, must be 
classed with the colored preacher who pos- 
sessed a wonderful ability to throw his con- 
gregation into spasms of religious ecstasy. 
When asked to explain his method he said : — 
"Well, sah, after I have chosen mah tex' and 
arranged mah remahks, I goes out into the 
back yahd an' expouns the sermon to my 
dawg. I tries it over in different tones of 

30 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

voice, and when I gets it worked up to that 
extent that it keeps the dawg howlin', then I 
knows that the power of the sperit is with me." 

True efficiency in a public speaker is not 
measured by the amount of excitement he 
can create but rather by the amount of think- 
ing he can awaken in the audience. 

Real vitality of thought clarifies and vivi- 
fies the expressive form but never destroys it. 
Physical excitement, which is the counterfeit 
of vitality of thought, tends to straighten and 
elongate all expressive form and thus destroys 
it. It is an enemy to intelligent expression. 

The right mind always wants the body and 
voice to do the right thing in expression, and 
whenever they obey this want, whether in 
their trained or untrained conditions, the mind 
of the auditor recognizes it as right, and that 
his intelligence is being addressed. That is 
because the mind's way is the universal way 
and can always be recognized by mind. 

Right expression always carries with it a 
revelation that intelligence is obtaining the 
mastery over that which is the remnant of 

31 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the tiger and the ape in human nature. The 
struggle is always going on, and every bit of 
expression, right or wrong, shows which is 
holding the upper hand, the intelligence or 
the animal. 

It is a common but erroneous belief that 
mind can think and mind can feel but that 
mind cannot act, cannot express; that it has 
no life of its own and consequently that the 
body is necessary in expression in order to 
supply the life, the energy. A sort of part- 
nership is thus erroneously supposed to exist 
between the mind and the body, a sort of 
division of labor. The right understanding, 
however, is that intelligence does not recog- 
nize the -material body in right expression ; 
the material senses recognize it but the mind 
recognizes only embodiment of idea. The 
body becomes the embodiment when it ab- 
solutely obeys the command of thought and 
does not allow its own sensations and nerve 
excitements to be in any way its masters. 

In and of themselves, voice and body in 
right expression, are nothing but obstructions : 

32 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

only as they serve the idea do they get out of 
the way. Any more voice than is required 
for the full expression of the thought and 
feeling is too much, and interferes with right 
expression almost as much as too little. 

However graceful the body or beautiful 
the voice, if the attention of the auditor is 
held by this beauty and grace, as being some- 
thing separate from the truth expressed, in 
just that degree are the voice and body ob- 
structive and disobedient. It would be as if 
the surface of a statue were so highly polished 
as to distract the eye from the sculptor's 
living thought. Voice, body, marble must 
serve the idea; then they are redeemed; 
then they disappear as material and serve 
in the house of the Lord. 

If the belief prevail that the embodiment 
in any art is anything in and of itself, if a 
separation be made between the concept and 
the expression, then the art tends towards 
decadence. When art in any subtle way 
works toward degeneracy it is when the 
beauty of the embodiment is worshipped 

33 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

rather than the spirit which produced it; 
when the form is looked on as possessing the 
intelligence of which it is only the symbol; 
when the effect is looked upon as the cause ; 
when the appeal is made to the emotions 
rather than the intelligence. 



34 



The Speaking Voice 

IT is my belief and understanding that the 
good voice is possible for, and latent in, 
every individual. I believe the good voice 
is the real voice. 

Nothing is so helpful to the voice-student as 
this understanding; that the good voice is 
his and already in his possession, latent, 
locked up, tied up, buried, hidden, but waiting 
to be liberated ; and that the processes of edu- 
cation and training are the untying and un- 
locking and clearing away of obstructions and 
the opening of channels ; that it is all a proc- 
ess of discovery, or of coming into one's in- 
heritance ; not a reaching out after something 
to attach to one's equipment ; not a process of 
acquirement, but a process of freeing. 

The good voice is the expression of the 
true self. The habitual voice is the expres- 
sion of the habitual self. " Habitual " should 
not be confused with " natural." Nature, 
correctly interpreted, is right and harmonious 

35 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

and works according to law. Habit may be 
xight and may be wrong. Furthermore, our 
habitual voices not only express our own mis- 
takes but also the mistakes and habits of 
thought of our grandparents, neighbors, en- 
vironment, occupation and opinions : not only 
our own opinions but inherited opinions and 
^opinions of opinions. 

The good voice expresses understanding; 
the faulty voice, habit or opinion. Faults of 
voice are, in their origin, the outgrowths of 
some kind of fear. They are caused in the 
beginning by some non-understanding or mis- 
understanding of power and later are contin- 
ued or induced by some misconception, mis- 
direction or misapplication of power. Fear 
is the result of the misunderstanding of power, 
and faults of voice become fastened on us in 
childhood before we know anything about 
power except as something which makes us 
do what we don't want to, and something 
which we cannot successfully resist, but which 
we might, if we were cunning enough, hide 
from or elude. Consequently the nasal voice, 

36 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

which is elementally a whine, the flat voice, 
which came originally from shrinking from 
struggle, the high voice, which came in child- 
hood from fear of the hopelessness of its pro- 
test against power, and the constricted voice, 
which was born in childish petulance and 
anger, are all accepted later as our natural 
voices. 

The man who believes that power resides 
in physical strength must change his mind 
before he can come into his good voice. If 
he himself possesses physical strength he will 
think power resides in his own person and he 
may develop a strong voice and a loud voice 
but not one capable of interpreting or in- 
spiring spiritualized thought. Or he may be 
a physically weak man; in that case he will 
imagine power resides in other men but not 
in himself, and will resent power, fear power, 
envy power, or feel that he can only unsuc- 
cessfully resist power. His voice will prob- 
ably be either weak, nasal, high-pitched or 
constricted, not because of the fact that he 
is physically weak, but because he believes 

37 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

power to reside in physical strength instead 
of spirit. 

The enlightened mind interprets power in 
terms of freedom — broadening of horizon, 
heightening of zenith. Right thought realizes 
power instead of fearing it. It sees power as 
beneficent rather than malignant; not as 
something that overthrows but that surrounds 
and uplifts. The unenlightened thought re- 
sists power because it fears. The enlight- 
ened thought utilizes, manifests and embodies 
power because it understands. 

Fear, either conscious, unconscious or sub- 
conscious, is the fundamental basis of such 
wrong mind-actions as bashfulness, self- 
consciousness, envy, emulation, hypocrisy, 
suspicion, discontent, anxiety, conceit, etc. 
The physical signs and effects of these wrong 
states of mind are: relaxed or contracted 
chest, shallow or clavicular breathing, rigid 
face muscles, tight upper lip, pinched nos- 
trils, constricted throat, inert soft-palate. 

Fear reverses all intelligent processes. 
Every one of the physical conditions men- 

38 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

tioned above is exactly contrary to what is 
necessary for proper voice production. The 
good voice requires an expanded torso and 
deep breathing : fear contracts the chest and 
shortens the breath. The good voice re- 
quires free and flexible face muscles: fear 
freezes them. The good voice insists on an 
open throat: fear clutches the throat and 
constricts all the breath channels. The 
effects of fear, ignorance and hypocrisy on 
the muscles of the body are unavoidable and 
unconcealable, and the quality of the voice is 
the betrayer and interpreter, beyond the con- 
trol of the speaker, of these conditions of 
thought. A perfectly trained voice, with a 
mind of fear, ignorance and pretence, will un- 
consciously revert to the old falsity. Fear 
must be lost in the right understanding of 
power — that power is loving and casts out 
fear. 

In freeing the voice of the student from 
wrong habits the teacher should be a keen 
detector of wrong habits of thought in the 
student. He should be alert to detect what 

39 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

particular form of fear may have become habit- 
ual in the student. Self-consciousness is the 
usual form. Self-conceit is a form of fear and 
often bashfulness is a form of self-conceit. 
The wise teacher will kindly and patiently 
guide the student out of these mistaken men- 
tal attitudes. It is of first importance that a 
vocal ideal should be established in the stu- 
dent's mind ; in his mind's ear he must hear 
the voice he hopes to have. As before said, 
nothing is so helpful to the student as to bring 
him to understand that this longed-for voice 
is his already, waiting to be freed and em- 
bodied. He must hear it, however, with his 
mind's ear. Sometimes he will recognize it 
in the voice of a great singer, or in some more- 
than-usual good tone in the voice of his 
teacher. He never recognizes it in anything 
that is mediocre : he recognizes it only in the 
voice that is so nearly ideal that it awakens 
his spiritual sense. This vocal ideal can be 
trusted to develop if only it be once awakened. 
In the meantime the teacher will give the 

student such vocal exercises as necessitate 

40 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the reversal of whatever bad vocal habit is 
to be overcome, and will patiently and en- 
couragingly show the student the way, mak- 
ing clear to him what the exercise is for and 
watching that it be practiced carefully and 
intelligently. The student can accomplish 
in one hour's practice with his thought clear 
as to just what he is trying to accomplish 
with the exercise, with his pattern held 
clearly before him in his mind's ear, than in 
days of mere " doing " the exercise with in- 
attentive thought. Whenever a right tone 
is liberated the student's attention must in- 
stantly be called to it, and the difference 
between it and the habitually wrong tone be 
established, not only in the student's ear but 
also in his sense of the way he produces the 
two tones — the right and the wrong. He 
must patiently make the right way his habit 
and his intelligence must recognize what con- 
dition of thought accompanied the sense of 
right vocal production ; at the same time his 
ear must recognize the right vocal sound. 
It is doubtful if anything helpful can be 
41 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

written about the definite exercises to be 
given to the student to overcome vocal faults 
and to develop right tone-production. Writ- 
ten directions are liable to misunderstanding 
and misapplication, however intelligent may 
be the reader and however carefully the 
writer may try to correctly describe and ex- 
plain the exercises. 

Many of the difficulties met in vocal train- 
ing come from a belief on the student's part 
that his voice-consciousness should be in his 
throat. The result of such a belief is a mus- 
cularization of those parts of his throat 
which for right tone production should have 
only the sense of ^expanded openness. By 
turning the attention of the student away 
from his throat to breath-control and voice- 
support, which must take place at his dia- 
phragm, his mind is rightly directed and a 
proper condition of throat more easily follows. 

Right breath-control and voice-support are 
indispensable factors of right voice-produc- 
tion. Without them the throat inevitably 
takes upon itself the office of controlling the 

42 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

breath, which office properly belongs to the 
diaphragm and the muscles of the torso. 

Before the voice can be intelligently used 
as an interpreter of spiritualized thought, all 
the right habits of vocal production must be 
established. Nothing is so effective in con- 
firming these right habits and leading the 
student into a full realization of the ideal 
voice as using it as the interpreter of the 
truth and beauty of good literature. Only 
after the adequate preliminary training and 
tuning of the vocal instrument, however, can 
the student be brought into a demonstrable 
understanding of the use of his voice as a 
medium of artistic expression. This second 
step in vocal education is more interesting 
perhaps, but not more important, than the 
first. The first calls for patience and abounds 
in drudgery ; the second has the deep inter- 
est of discovery and brings with it a sense of 
coming into one's inheritance. 

Let it be remembered that however beauti- 
ful and free and obedient the voice may be, 
if the possessor of the voice be not also 

43 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

possessed of spiritual and intellectual life and 
culture, there will be nothing of value for the 
beautiful voice to express, nothing worthy 
of chosen expression. On the other hand, 
however high the purpose, however spirit- 
ualized the thought, however beautiful the 
vision, without the trained voice the revelation 
through the Spoken Word will be obstructed 
and imperfect. 

If there be, indeed, a science of expression 
the fundamental laws must be found oper- 
ative in every expressional act. The voice as 
an expression of the activity of the mind must 
manifest in itself the mind's trinity. Let me 
again state the fundamental principle of the 
science of expression. Expression is a mind- 
activity and every expressional manifestation must 
prove that its cause and source are in mind. In 
order to prove this the expressional manifes- 
tation must show the operation of another 
law, called the Law of Trinity, which may 
be stated as follows: 

The whole thought or mind-action is a trin- 
ity, the three factors of which are : 

44 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

i. Reflective Factor (Intellectual). 

2. Affective Factor (Volitional). 

3. Effective Factor (Vital). 

This trinity proves itself in expression as 
follows : 

1. Reflective Factor, in shape or form. 

2. Affective Factor, in unfoldment-in-se- 

quence. 

3. Effective Factor, in ability to act : mo- 

tion. 

Voice, as expression, obeys the Law of Trin- 
ity as follows : 

Intelligence is symbolized in and governs em- 
phasis and inflection, (form) 
Errors: — sharpness, high pitch, — arising 
from desire to argue and convince rather 
than to define and arrange in order. 

Volition is symbolized in and governs melody, 
harmony, smoothness and flexibility, (un- 
foldment) 

Errors : — too many curves, caused by over 
desire to please, hypocrisy, sentimentality. 
Minor cadence — over desire for sympathy. 
45 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Vitality is symbolized in and governs freedom, 
fullness, range, rate, and resonance, (mo- 
tion) 

Errors: — loudness, roughness, monotony; 
all resulting from belief in power in muscle 
and life in body. 

Voice itself, apart from words, is a member 
of another trinity, a trinity of languages, 
which, in our special art of the Spoken Word, 
the mind uses for its embodiment. The 
three factors of this trinity are 

i. Words. 

2. Voice or intonation. 

3. Action. 

1. Reflective Factor employs as its special 
language, words — voice showing concepts 
of thought. 

2. Affective Factor employs as its special 
language voice, intonation, showing feeling 
produced by thought. 

3. Effective Factor employs as its special 
language action — showing energy of 
thought and feeling. 

46 



Expressive Action 

EVERY method of teaching expressive ac- 
tion today, unless it be so antiquated or 
so lacking of a scientific basis as to be 
not worth while, embodies more or less, or at 
least is tinged by, the discoveries and teach- 
ings of Francois Delsarte. Dr. Alger, in his 
Life of Forrest, says, "Delsarte toiled for 
forty years with unswerving zeal, to trans- 
form the bungling empiricism of the stage, 
into a perfect art growing out of a perfect 
science. . . . Art, Delsarte said, with his 
matchless precision of phrase, is feeling 
passed through thought and fixed in form." 
Whatever were the faults and vagaries 
of his theory of expressive action, Delsarte 
made a tremendous advance in the teaching 
of the science and art of expression over 
anything that had been done before his day, 
and no advance has since been made that 
has not been mainly in the direction pointed 
out by him. 

47 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

One of the universally accepted principles 
of all training in expression or in any depart- 
ment of human activity, was first discovered 
and formulated by Delsarte, namely, that 
beneath the vast myriad of accidental actions 
and combinations of actions, there are a few 
fundamental actions, which, if they could be 
established in habit, would not only correct 
all faulty action but would develop and free 
power ; that in training for expression all ex- 
ercises should be taken upon these few ele- 
mental ; that practice of accidentals develops 
weakness and inefficiency. 

Delsarte also formulated the following law : 
The fundamental of all expressive position is poise. 
Poise is always unchangeable. The point of support 
may change with the varying state of emotion, but 
poise is never violated. Any intelligent teaching 
of expressive action must be governed by an 
understanding of this law. 

Delsarte taught that, in expressive attitude, 
there are possible but nine fundamental points 
of support, or centers of poise, and over each 
one of these centers of poise are grouped a 

48 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

vast number of combinations of expressive 
combinations, almost without limit, but each 
distinctive group having the same fundamental 
root. Also that in all expressive action grace 
and distinction are dependent on the distinc- 
tiveness and control of elemental actions. 

The three grand laws of expression, Trin- 
ity, Opposition and Evolution, are Delsartian, 
and they are accepted in all fields of art to be 
self -evidently true. In our art the disobedi- 
ence of them, in any particular, at once re- 
sults in awkwardness or affectation. Obedi- 
ence to them causes the body to become 
transparent to thought-activity, and leads to 
freedom and spontaneity in all expressive 
action. 

In considering the material human body as 
an expressional servant of the thought there 
are certain symbolisms and correspondences 
existing in its form and outline, which, when 
stated, at once seem true. For instance, 
Delsarte taught that the three factors of the 
thought's trinity, the mental, moral and 
vital, find themselves reflected in the three 

49 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

factors of the human body's trinity, the 
head, the torso and the limbs; each one of 
these agents being the symbol and primary 
agent in expression of one of the thought- 
activities. They are alloted as follows: 

i. Mental — has for its special agent the 
head. 

2. Moral — has for its special agent the torso. 

3. Vital — has for its special agent the limbs. 

This correspondency seems obviously and 
interestingly true the moment it is brought 
to one's attention. Delsarte's explanation is, 
that as in mind the mental function perceives 
and guides, the moral impels and the vital 
supports and executes, so in body the head 
guides, the torso impels, and the limbs (legs) 
support and (arms) execute. 

Undoubtedly the reason we so readily agree 
that the head is the agent of the mentality of 
the thought is on account of the common be- 
lief that the reflective process goes on in the 
head, just as it is commonly believed that 
the "love activity" goes on in the heart and 

50 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

as the heart is in the torso, the torso seems to 
be the rightful agent of the moral factor of the 
mind; and as the physical ability to go and 
come, to support and execute, resides pri- 
marily in the limbs, that division of the human 
body, it is commonly believed, should be the 
particular agent of the vital factor of the 
thought. 

One thing seems certain; — in our present 
state of spiritual development truth speaks 
to us in parables and symbols and awakens 
partial understanding to fuller understanding. 
Jesus found it necessary to teach spiritual 
truths by means of parables and thus found 
a gate-way through which Truth delivered 
the message which could be thus received 
and, in a measure, understood. 

If we accept these symbols and correspond- 
ences taught by Delsarte in the sense of 
parables, and if they are not confounded with 
laws and principles, they can be used in art 
as something which enables it to carry truth 
through the blockade of the five senses to the 
thought on the other side. 

51 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

It must be insisted on, that neither the 
physical form nor any of its parts has any 
power in expression to appeal to spiritualized 
thought, except as it becomes obedient to 
right mind. 

Years of experience, patient study and ob- 
servation have led me into the understanding 
of certain fundamental truths and their re- 
lation to art which I have endeavored to set 
forth in these pages, and which seem to me to 
differ vitally and basically from certain teach- 
ings of Delsarte, as far as I am conversant 
with them. 

I am convinced that Delsarte confused vi- 
tality of thought with sensation, and that he be- 
lieved the mind and the physical body to be 
in partnership. He states the mind's trinity 
as reflective, affective and sensitive. If one is to 
hold true to the understanding that the ' c mock- 
mind " of sensation is an enemy to right ex- 
pression, and that expression is a mental prop- 
osition from beginning to end and takes place 
in spite of the material body, certain Delsartian 
points of view would have to be disputed. 

52 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

To return to the subject of expressive ac- 
tion: — the body as a whole, and every one 
of its different agents of expression, have 
bearings, attitudes and inflections. Bearings 
indicate permanent conditions or habits of 
being, attitudes indicate temporary states of 
being, and inflections indicate passing, mo- 
mentary phases of being. 

Underlying all expressive bearings and 
attitudes of the body as a whole is the ele- 
mental idea of poise; that is, the proper 
relation of the mass of a body to its base. 
Material left to itself will constantly endeavor 
to broaden its base. It seems to recognize 
earth as its source and support, and to be im- 
pelled to return to it, and to flatten itself out 
as much as possible on the surface of the 
earth. 

Spiritual intelligence recognizes that its 
source and support are from above, and what- 
ever it governs it lifts into the position of up- 
rightness. 

The two elemental lines, the vertical and 
the horizontal, stand, in expression, for these 

53 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

two conditions of consciousness. The ver- 
tical is the line of intelligent uprightness, of 
affirmation and of establishment of truth. 
The horizontal is the line of non-intelligent 
inertia, of negation and of overthrow. 

The upright position is the symbol of mind- 
governed man; the horizontal, of mind-de- 
serted material. All ignoble emotions tend 
to make the body depart from its upright 
position. All noble emotions and inspiring 
thoughts emphasize the body's uprightness 
and lessen its seeming dependence on the 
earth for support. 

Fear and physical weakness employ cer- 
tain identical signals, such as broad base, 
unsteady agents of support, trembling and 
bending. Fear and physical weakness, when 
they are temporary states of being, are ex- 
pressed in temporary attitudes 'rather than 
in habitual bearings. It is the habitual con- 
dition of the mind which is symbolized in the 
habitual bearing of the body. 

In passing from habitual bearing to tem- 
porary attitude of the body it is necessary to 

54 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

begin with the elemental military attitude ; — 
heels together, weight on both feet, body up- 
right. The significance of this attitude is — 
readiness to obey, — to receive commands. 
It is the servant's attitude, the attitude of the 
inferior. Unless the weight can be changed 
to one foot, leaving the other free, the indi- 
vidual cannot change his base. A desire to 
advance will sway his body forward, a desire 
to retreat will sway his body back. But the 
weight held over both feet limits all ex- 
pressive attitude of the body to that circum- 
scribed realm. 

If now the weight be taken on one foot and 
the free foot advanced or withdrawn, the 
attitude of the individual immediately assumes 
the expression of a person under command of 
his own will. His desire to advance carries 
his weight over his advanced foot, leaving 
the other foot free to carry still farther for- 
ward the now free and movable base. His 
desire to withdraw carries the weight over 
his back foot, leaving the other free to be- 
come a new base still farther back, etc. 

55 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

The base composed of a supporting foot and 
a free foot, in combination with the elemental 
base, where the weight is on both feet, sup- 
plies a series of points of support which the 
three factors of the thought's trinity can use 
for their special symbols and combinations 
of symbols. 

When the thought's vitality is dominant the 
obedient body symbolizes that state by ad- 
vancing its weight over the advanced foot. 
When the thought's reflectivity is dominant 
that state is symbolized by the weight of the 
body being] over the back foot. The base, in 
expressive attitude, has slight office in the 
expression of the volitional factor of the mind. 
That factor of the mind either likes or dis- 
likes, either chooses or rejects, and the 
thought's choice or decision is registered at 
the base merely as a point of departure from 
one state of poise to another. 

As attitudes over the feet express elemen- 
tally the state of the energy of the thought, 
rather than the plan or purpose, the element of 
motion is more in evidence in the expression 

56 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

than is the element of shape or form. This 
is, of course, because motion is the special 
symbol of energy. 

Every attitude is fully expressive only as it 
indicates the motion employed to arrive at it. 

It may be interesting now to note how mo- 
tion itself obeys the law of trinity in that in 
its three essential directions — towards a cen- 
ter, about a center and away from a center — 
each of the three factors of the mind's trinity 
finds its own expressive symbol. 

The reflective activity uses motion towards 
a center. 

The affective activity uses motion about a 
center. 

The effective activity uses motion from a 
center. 

In all expressive attitudes the center of 
impulse to move should be in the chest. 
The order of unfoldment is as follows: ex- 
panded chest, attitude over foot, arm gesture, 
speech. Attitude should never follow arm 
gesture and neither attitude nor gesture 
should follow speech. 

57 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Awkwardness in attitude or gesture is due 
either to disobedience of the law of opposi- 
tion and balance, or of the law of evolution 
or unfoldment-in-sequence. 

What is here written about expressive ac- 
tion is not an attempt at more than the barest 
statement of two or three fundamental laws 
and their relation to the movement and atti- 
tudes of the body as a whole. 

The purpose is to interest the reader in 
the fact that there are laws and principles 
underlying and governing form, motion and un- 
foldment and to lead him to discover by in- 
dependent thought that these laws are uni- 
versal and govern the movement of the solar 
system as well as the most elusive of the ex- 
pressive movements of the head or the hand 
or the brow and that these laws are laws of 
mind and not of matter. 



58 



Laws of Expression 

THE very word " Expression " not only 
states to our thought an idea, but paints 
a picture of an action — motion from 
within out. It states the idea of something 
hidden, invisible, moving out into visibility; 
of a something imprisoned using its prison- 
house as a means of coming out into recog- 
nized existence, forcing it (the prison-house) 
to take on the form and motion of the pris- 
oner ; to become his embodiment. 

Still more interesting is the truth that this 
body, this prison-house, depends for its sig- 
nificance, its value, upon being so used by 
this something which is within or behind. 

We have grown to speak of this invisible 
something which gives shape and motion and 
meaning to its prison-house, as being " with- 
in " or " behind," simply from the fact that 
it is invisible and intangible to the physical 
senses until its activities are pictured by an 
embodiment. By embodiment is meant any 

59 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

and all activities which give the impression of 
shape, motion and unfoldment One's objective 
thought has taken on its shape just in such 
a degree as one can define it, handle it, con- 
centrate one's attention on it, arrest its mo- 
tion, divide it, unfold its processes. It may- 
be still unexpressed to the other man because 
it may not have " moved out" far enough. 
In order that another may feel, hear and see 
one's thought it seems necessary that the 
thought should seize upon material (body), 
and make it embodiment. If this embodi- 
ment be marble carved to the shape of one's 
thought, or if the embodiment be in the 
form and melodies of music, then we think 
of the invisible and intangible something as 
being outside the visible symbol and reflected 
by it. We think of the spiritual cause as 
being, not confined inside the form and giving 
it shape from within, but more as if the 
statue, painting or symphony were a mirror in 
which the spiritual activity were reflected; 
or as if the spiritual activity surrounded and 

outlined the symbol by dissolving away all that 

60 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

was superfluous. Nevertheless we speak of 
all these acts of expression as the inner activity 
of the mind working out into visible or audible 
forms and motions. At once we find our- 
selves conceiving of two factors in expression, 
the inner and the outer, the invisible and the 
visible; and of these as being inseparable 
parts of one whole activity. The first we con- 
ceive as cause, the second as manifestation. 

We understand that in expression all cause 
is in mind and all manifestation is in or through 
form, motion and unfoldment Form, motion 
and unfoldment must never be accepted as 
cause nor must t)fey be looked upon as ef- 
fect ; the effect takes place in the thought of 
the observer; they — form, motion and un- 
foldment — awaken thought and emotion only 
as they reflect the mind-action which produces 
them. Form, motion and unfoldment are 
ideas in mind. Manifestation is mental and is 
a trinity and can be resolved into its three 
factors or conditions, and although these fac- 
tors, form, motion aud unfoldment, are never 
cause in expression yet they awaken in the 

61 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

observer, as I said before, the same mind- 
action of which they are the manifestation. 

Form is recognized by the human conscious- 
ness as a manifestation of plan and speaks to 
the intellectual activity, or that part of the 
mind which measures, enumerates, outlines, classi- 
fies and defines. 

Motion is recognized by the human con- 
sciousness as a manifestation of energy and 
appeals to that part of the mind which acts, 
executes and demonstrates. 

Unfoldment is recognized as a manifestation 
of purpose and appeals to one's understand- 
ing of good-will, love. 

A mind-activity does not embody itself ex- 
cept for the purpose of being understood, in 
order that a brotherhood of mind may be rec- 
ognized. I, as the observer, find in my own 
consciousness a trinity of activities corre- 
sponding to the three kinds of appeal made 
by the expression. I find that I can think in 
the sense of reflecting, defining and analyzing. 
I find I can think in the sense of liking, de- 
siring, choosing, willing, loving. I find I can 

62 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

think in the sense of executing, demonstrating, 
expressing. 

Let us call the first the reflective, or intel- 
lectual activity of the thought. 

Let us call the second the affective, or vo- 
litional activity of the thought. 

Let us call the third the effective, or the 
vital activity of the thought. 

These three form a trinity — they are co- 
existent, co-essential and co-operative. This 
trinity is the causation of all right expressive 
manifestation ; hence, logically, a trinity must 
be discovered in every manifestative phe- 
nomenon. 

In all manifestative phenomena, whether 
in life or art, there are discoverable three 
fundamental laws which are so interlaced, 
inter-dependent, and introactive that they 
form a trinity, each one implying the other 
two and each one depending upon the other 
two for its wholeness and completeness. 
These laws are called the three grand laws of 
expression. 

First, the Law of Trinity. 
63 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Second, the Law of Opposition or Balance. 

Third, the Law of Evolution. 

The Law of Trinity. The three-fold activities 
of the thought are apparent in and govern all 
right expression as follows: the reflective ac- 
tivity governs and is expressed in the outline 
of the form ; the affective activity governs and 
is expressed in the sense of a central starting 
point or impulse, the unfoldment from which 
results in the expressive form; the vital activity 
governs and is expressed in the ability and 
adequacy of the form to express the thought's 
purpose. 

The Law of Opposition or Balance. Whole- 
ness is an essential factor in all right expres- 
sion and implies a recognizable center with all 
opposing sides balanced ; thus proving in the 
expression a right and adequate intellectual 
plan and a proper measure of energy in the 
thought to unfold its purpose into a determined 
symmetrical and well-balanced form. 

Note: Every expressive manifestation is 
rendered significant through the realization 
of its center. Without such a realization 

6 4 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the phenomenon seems to be a fragment with- 
out any expression of plan or purpose, con- 
sequently lacking wholeness and complete- 
ness. 

The Law of Evolution. An expressive mani- 
festation is significant only when it reflects the 
truth that its form is the result of a central 
impulse, born of a purpose and served by energy 
of thought sufficient to unfold it sequentially 
along a determined path or plan to a deter- 
mined form. 

Note applicable to all three laws: In ev- 
ery expressive manifestation there is reflected 
the purpose which gave birth to the impulse 
to express, the conception which gave birth to 
the purpose and which planned and guided 
and directed the expression, and the energy 
which carried the impulse into the form of 
expression determined and directed by the 
intellectual concept. 

In the first law plan is primary and purpose 
and energy secondary. 

In the second law energy is primary and plan 
and purpose secondary. 

65 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

In the third law purpose is primary and plan 
and energy secondary. 

COMPREHENSIVE LAW. In right expres- 
sion all causation is mental and the expression must 
prove it. All manifestation is in form, motion and 
unfoldment and is also mental. 

The fact that it is arbitrarily said that the 
above statements are laws is one thing; 
whether or not the reader of this book under- 
stands them to be laws is another. They 
surely are not laws for him until they are 
self-evident to his understanding. Laws can- 
not be theorized into existence nor argued 
into existence. If they are laws they are 
discoverable. 

It has been my endeavor to so word my 
own thought that the thought of my reader 
might follow mine in its unfolding and thus 
we might together reach the same con- 
clusion. If we can agree that the universe 
rightly understood is an expression of its 
Cause and that it reflects or indicates a cer- 
tain method in this expression, and if we find 
that same method or activity or correspond- 

66 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

ency, or whatever it might be termed, again 
manifested in our own minds or thought- 
processes and their expressional activities, 
then we can, I believe, accept this discovered 
method as obedient to universal law. 

QUESTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 
CHAPTER 

Question. — What is meant by manifestation? 

Ans. — The outward sign of an inward 

activity; anything that seems to 
have form, motion and unfold- 
ment. 

Question. — Can a manifestation have one 
of these characteristics without 
having the other two? 

Ans. — It cannot; these three outward 

signs are a trinity. 

Question. — What is meant by a trinity? 

Anis. — A whole made up of three essen- 

tials which are co-essential, co- 
existent and co-operative. 

Question. — If the outward sign be a trinity 

67 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

what must we conclude about 
the inward activity ? 

Ans. — That it also is a trinity. 

Question. — Given the trinity, form, motion 
and unfoldment, can one trace 
back from them the nature of 
the trinity of which they are the 
sign? 

Ans. — Yes, as follows: — form implies 

design, or plan, in the cause; 
design, or plan, implies wisdom 
or intelligence; hence, wisdom 
must be one of the character- 
istics of the cause. Motion, in 
the expression, implies energy 
in the cause, energy implies life 
or power; hence, power is another 
of the characteristics of the 
cause. Unfoldment, in the ex- 
pression, implies in the cause a 
central impulse towards a fulfill- 
ment, which means a desire, 
or purpose, which means love. 
Hence, love must be the third 

68 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

characteristic existent in the 
cause. 

Question. — What then have we found to be 
the trinity existent in cause? 

Ans. — Wisdom, love and power. 

Question. — Does this trinity exist in matter 
or in mind ? 

Ans. — In mind. In reality these activ- 

ities are spiritual, being attri- 
butes of God. 

Question. — Is the trinity existent in nature, 
namely, form, motion and un- 
foldment, material? 

Ans. — No, the factors of this trinity are 

ideas in mind; if their cause 
is mental they must also be 
mental. 

Question. — Why is one logically certain that 
form, motion and unf oldment are 
members of a trinity ? 

Ans. — Because each one implies the 

other two and can be defined in 

terms of the other two, as follows: 

Form expresses the arrival, at de- 

69 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

termined limits, of motion em- 
ployed by an unfoldment begin- 
ning at a center. 
Unfoldment expresses a central 
impulse employing motion to 
arrive at form. 

Motion expresses the means a 
central impulse employs in its 
unfoldment to arrive at form. 



70 



Form 

5URFACE is the plane of contact be- 
tween an idea and its recognition by 
a human consciousness. It has length 
and breadth but no thickness apart from the 
volume of the idea of which it is the outline. 
It is the outward manifestation of the cen- 
ter's activity. When " surface " is thought 
of as being anything separate from the idea 
it outlines it must be thought of as having 
thickness, which is a contradiction of the 
thought of surface. 

Outline is the recognition by a human con- 
sciousness of an intelligent plan inherent in 
the idea. Center is the recognition of a lov- 
ing purpose or principle governing the idea 
and giving it wholeness. Radius is the recog- 
nition of life and power reflected in the idea 
and capable of carrying the loving purpose 
into fulfilment in the recognized plan. 

Form, in reality, is an idea in mind and 
cannot be fixed in finite outline. " Form " is 

71 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the name we give to what takes place in our 
minds when we recognize an intelligent plan 
in an idea. What seems to the senses to be 
outline and surface of form, or in other words, 
shape, is in reality the limit of our under- 
standing of the plan. 

Shape, or form, seems to the physical 
senses to be finite ; a definite thing outlined 
by our beliefs in regard to it. What is outside 
of our understanding seems not to exist. As 
our understanding grows the form seems to 
change or unfold. The form present in one's 
consciousness is forever made up of the 
fading presence of the one just gone before 
and the dawning presence of the one just to 
come. 

Real form is spiritual and is outlined only 
by God himself. One's spiritual understand- 
ing must conceive of forms as being, in reality, 
unfoldments from centers of growth; always 
symmetrical, always whole and harmonious, 
but never finitely fixed in an unyielding out- 
line. 

In art " form " is never frozen into the fixity 
72 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

and death of finiteness; it ever speaks of 
unf oldment ; it is ever alive with the move- 
ment gone through as well as with the move- 
ment just begun and yet to come. Thought 
unfolds that way; so does a rose; so does 
civilization. 

Rodin says in speaking of this truth: "It 
is in short a metamorphosis of this kind that 
the painter or sculptor effects in giving move- 
ment to his personages. He represents the 
transition from one pose to another ; he indi- 
cates how insensibly the first glides into the 
second. In his work we still see a part of 
what was and we discover a part of what is to 
be." 

Expression is the contact between an idea 
and its recognition, — not the point of contact 
but the contact itself. It is not a locality but 
an impact. 

The desire for expression and the working 
out of that desire are activities we have in 
common with the Father. God's expression 
is The Word spoken of in the first verses of 
John. It is the Life and Light of men. 

73 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Our expression is the recognition of brother- 
hood ; it is the recognition of the mistake of 
"mine and thine" in the realization of the 
truth of "ours." 

QUESTIONS 

Question. — What is the most valuable thing 
any school can teach its students? 

Ans. — To think independently. 

Question. — What is meant by thinking in- 
dependently ? 

Ans. — To be able to follow logically, 

uninfluenced by opinion, a 
thought-process which unfolds 
point by point to a conclusion. 

Question. — Do we generally associate the 
word " thinking " with the study 
of expression ? 

Ans. — I am afraid not. 

Question. — Do we associate thinking with 
the study of mathematics ? 

Ans. — We surely do. 

Question. — Granting that each subject be 

74 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

equally well taught, is there a 
reason why mathematics seems 
more in the realm of thought 
than does expression ? 

Ans. — Only because we have been 

taught to believe that abstract 
thinking is the only kind of 
thinking. Mathematics necessi- 
tates abstract thinking, reflec- 
tive thinking. Expression deals 
with vital thinking — thought in 
action. 

Question. — Is there a science of expression ? 

Ans. — There is. 

Question. — What is the fundamental prin- 
ciple underlying the science of 
expression ? 

Ans. — The cause of all right expression 

is mental. 

Question. — Does this mean that in the art 
of expression there must be, first 
of all, a clear mental concept ? 

Ans. — Yes, but that is only a part of 

what is meant. The mental 

75 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

cause is a trinity made up 
of a concept, a desire and an 
ability, — all mental. 

Question. — Given a mental cause what 
would be the nature of the em- 
bodiment ? 

Ans. — Mental, of course. 

Question. — Can one truthfully conceive of 
a mental cause producing a 
physical embodiment? 

Ans. — No. 

Question. — What is meant by a mental em- 
bodiment in the art of expres- 
sion? 

Ans. — The embodiment can be said to 

be mental when the mental 
concept is made visible. 

Question. — When is this correctly done ? 

Ans. — When the mental concept is 

carried out in definite pictures 
of thought under mental guid- 
ance. 

Question. — State this in another way. 

Ans. — When there is no action of voice 

76 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

or body that does not spring 
from vivified thought. 

Question. — Are not the voice and body 
material ? 

Ans. — They are in themselves, but in 

proportion to their obedience to 
thought they cease to be material 
and become the idea embodied, 
as does the paint of the painter 
when it truly serves his vi- 
sion. 

Question. — What is the especial danger at- 
tending the use of the voice and 
body as media ? 

Ans. — They claim an intelligence of 

their own, residing in nerve-cen- 
ters. 

Question. — What would this mock intelli- 
gence do? 

Ans. — It would call attention to its own 

excitements and sensations. 

Question. — What province have voice and 
body in the art of expression? 

Ans. — They have no province save as 

77 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

they become the obedient ser- 
vants of the mind. 

Question. — What has been a common be- 
lief about voice and body ? 

Ans. — That they naturally express what 

is in the mind. 

Question. — Is this true ? 

Ans. — If the body were truly the spirit- 

ual body and we had already 
proved we were dwelling in the 
kingdom of Heaven, this would 
be so. At present we have to 
choose to be absent from the 
body and present with truth. 

Question. — How can we be absent from the 
body when so much of our time 
is given to training it ? 

Ans. — As we train the body to obey cer- 

tain fundamental laws, which 
are mental and spiritual, we are 
present with the law; thought 
is directed to a mental process 
and away from the feelings and 

sensations of the body. The 

78 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

body is being guided out of the 
way. 

Question. — When a mental cause produces 
a mental manifestation or an 
appeal to mind, we have what ? 

Ans. — A logical result. 

Question. — What do we mean by logic ? 

Ans. — "The science upon which cor- 

rect thought depends — the art 
of attaining by argument the 
correct conclusion and avoiding 
a wrong conclusion." 

Question. — Would it be logical to assume 
mental causation if the appeal 
of the finished product were 
physical ? 

Ans. — It would not. 

Question. — Is it generally believed that a 
mental concept is necessary to 
any expression? 

Ans. — It is, but not always proved. 

Question. — If the claim for mental causation 
were made when the result was 
physical where was the mistake ? 

79 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Ans. — The mistake was in the process. 

Question. — Granting the clear mental con- 
cept why did not the expression 
appeal to mind ? 

Ans. — Because an untrained agent was 

trusted to do the right thing. 

Question. — Just where was the point of de- 
parture from the right proc- 
ess? 

Ans. — Just when mental guidance was 

abandoned for nerve-response 
(often mistaken for feeling). 

Question. — Do the physical agents ever do 
the right thing in expression if 
left to themselves ? 

Ans. — They do not. When left to 

themselves they follow the path 
of the least resistance. 

Question. — Would the mental concept be 
made visible, simply because it 
is clear in the mind of the 
speaker, if the physical agents 
have not been trained to be 

obedient ? 

80 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Ans. — The mental concept would not 

only not be made clear in expres- 
sion but would become less clear 
to the one endeavoring to express 
it- 
Question. — What would be made visible ? 

Ans. — Some measure of concept (de- 

pending upon the speaker's first 
clarity of thought) together with 
the confusion resulting from 
turning a mental concept over 
to a physical response. 

Question. — What would be the least bad 
effect? 

Ans. — The speaker's purpose would be 

dimmed and blurred. 

Question. — What would be the maximum 
bad effect ? 

Ans. — The whole appeal would be made 

to sensation. 

Question. — In right expression to what is 
the appeal made ? 

Ans. — From mind to mind. 

81 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

Question. — What relation do concept and 
expression bear to each other? 

Ans. — They are two essential activities 

of the same thing, each incom- 
plete without the other. 

Question. — What is the process of the in- 
telligent study of expression ? 

Ans. — A constant endeavor to embody 

the best concept and purpose 
one has of the literature one 
desires to interpret, guided by 
the best artistic judgment one 
possesses at the time. As the 
expression becomes more nearly 
true to one's concept, the inner 
vision becomes clearer; the 
clearer vision then demands a 
clearer embodiment, and so the 
process unfolds. 



82 



Intelligence and Dramatic 
Art 

DURING an interesting discussion of 
dramatic art, a man of thought and 
judgment in literary and art matters 
asked me why in my opinion any high-minded 
actor is ever willing to impersonate a villain 
or any character of disreputable sort. The 
question recalled to my mind the fact that I 
had once been told that it took a good man to 
play a villain intelligently, for to a real villain 
villainy does not appear villainous but desir- 
able and intelligent. An actor who is a man 
of principle places villainy rightly in the scheme 
of human life which the play depicts, and rec- 
ognizes how much of good is contradicted by 
what the " villain " stands for, and just how 
unreal is the villain's estimate of values. 

The man of principle understands why the 
villain is introduced into the scheme of the 
play; that he is the shadow that emphasizes 

83 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the lights ; that the play is a picture of human 
life setting forth some struggle between the 
forces which build up and the forces which 
strive to pull down. 

An actor of vile heart would doubtless con- 
sider Iago the most intelligent person in the 
entire play and although Iago might consider 
himself so, yet the actor who had the Iago mind 
could not, it seems to me, intelligently grasp 
what Shakespeare meant that character to 
mean in the whole scheme of the tragedy of 
Othello. 

Still the question is, why should a good man 
want to play bad characters. It may be be- 
cause he desires to show how ugly villainy 
really is when viewed in the light of intelli- 
gent goodness. The more intelligent the 
actor the clearer he sees the purpose of the 
play — the reason for the whole presentation. 
He sees why the struggle between the forces 
of good and evil is dramatically set forth. 
He understands and appreciates the high pur- 
pose of the author. An actor of villainous 
mind is not so intelligent as the actor of high 

84 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

mind and principle and consequently is not so 
good a judge of what villainy represents in the 
picture; to him it may seem luminous but 
to the good man it stands for blackness — 
the absence of light. 

An intelligent actor does not shrink from 
playing a detestable character from any fear 
that the badness of the character's mind will 
react upon his own and influence him to bad- 
ness. The character's behavior grows more 
repugnant to his own mind as he sees deeper 
and deeper into his motives and aims. The 
good actor also knows that villainy rightly de- 
picted will never lead an auditor into villainy, 
so his satisfaction in contributing his artistic 
bit to the mosaic of the intelligently presented 
play is not dimmed by false fear. 

One might ask the question, why does an 
actor desire to play any part, good or bad. He 
surely would not be moved to play the char- 
acter of a good man hoping it might make 
him any better than before, for, if he be an 
intelligent actor, he knows that no such 
effect would result, any more than playing a 

85 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

villain's part would in any way corrupt him; 
nor, if he be intelligent, would he be weak 
enough to derive pleasure from imagining 
that the audience would attribute to him, per- 
sonally, any of the goodness he depicts in the 
character. 

The desire to dramatically interpret any 
character, worthy or unworthy, springs from 
an artistic impulse and purpose existent in 
the actor's mind. How he is going to do it is 
a problem for his intellect to determine ; how 
successfully he is able to carry out his purpose 
in accordance with his intellectual plan is a 
problem for his technical ability to answer. 
Therefore, apart from his technical ability to 
play the part, there are two activities at work 
in the actor's mind — his artistic purpose and 
his intellectual plan. Many an actor has the 
desire to play a certain part and he may have, 
at the same time, enough technical skill to 
act it; if now his artistic intelligence is en- 
listed; if he does not give over the whole 
matter to his desires and impulses but guides 
and directs these motor forces with his intel- 

86 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

lect, there will result in the impersonation 
what is called " form." This " form " in the 
characterization is the only proof possible 
that the actor has allowed his intellect to take 
any part whatever in the work. 

By " form " is not meant the character's 
physical appearance or outline but the angles 
and curves of his thought and feeling; the 
high-lights and shadows of his acts. Just as 
the form of a spoken sentence is indicated 
and fixed by the emphatic word and by the 
proper subordination of phrases, so in a 
characterization the " form " is determined 
by the emphasis of certain characteristics and 
a proper subordination of others; the result- 
ing high-lights, half-lights and graded shad- 
ows give the impression of shape or form and 
it is that which indicates that intelligence is 
guiding, and speaks to intelligence in the 
auditor. 

If the actor's artistic purpose be vital enough 
to demand embodiment and if his intellectual 
plan be clear and definite and if his voice and 
body be schooled and trained to facile obedi- 

87 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

ence to his vital thought, then will the " form " 
of the characterization be clear and definite 
and interpretive of the actors artistic purpose. 

Lack of intellect, or the subordination of 
the intellect to the emotions, which is a mis- 
take too often made by actors and orators, 
blurs and distorts the form and hence the 
artistic purpose is lost. Without form there 
will be no appeal to the intelligence of the 
auditor and the emotion produced in the 
auditor will not be a legitimate emotion but 
one born of sensation. 

There are instances where the artist is in- 
tellectually and morally undeveloped but so 
wonderfully trained in the technique of his 
art, in the use of its forms, its languages, 
its symbols and its vocabulary, that he is a 
wonderful instrument, and using emotion as 
his creative starting point rather than intelli- 
gence, but using the language of spirit and the 
forms of intelligence, he may embody an im- 
pulse which the auditor must believe started 
in intelligence and spiritual vision; conse- 
quently it often reproduces in the auditor the 

88 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

legitimate intelligent and spiritual activity, 
and the auditor credits the performer with 
possessing and being moved by the same 
spiritual exaltation by which he himself is 
moved. 

The end, however, for such an artist is a 
disintegration of the instrument — a loss of 
power; sensation no longer able to take on 
the language of spirit but always baldly ap- 
parent as sensation making an ineffectual 
appeal to sensation. 



89 



The Right Appeal 

ONE afternoon upon returning from a 
reading by an actor, who presented for 
the enjoyment of his audience scenes 
from a play in which he had acted as a star, 
I was filled with a kind of wonder that the 
reading was so unsatisfactory. I had enjoyed 
the acting of this star in this very play but the 
reading left me quite unmoved, in short, my 
only feeling at the close of the performance 
was one of bewilderment that one who could 
so adequately interpret a character when he 
occupied the stage and had the freedom of 
his own art should, when he invaded the realm 
of the reader, fall so far short. Indeed many 
mediocre readers could have read the scenes 
with a greater appeal to the intelligence and 
to the imagination than did this greater star. 
Finally I realized that the art of reading was 
no more understood by the actor than is the 
art of acting by the reader. The reader, how- 
ever, realizes his own shortcomings in the 

90 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

realm of acting, but the actor generally imag- 
ines that he quite understands the reader's 
art, and not understanding the difference in 
technique, reads in a way not only to dull one's 
imagination but sometimes to make one won- 
der if one were not deceived even in his acting. 

Out of this experience I arrived at the fol- 
lowing conclusions which I have set down 
rather didactically: 

When an intelligent actor reads a play for 
an audience the dangers are two: first, that 
he will read each part as he would act it, 
using too many physical signs of emotions 
resulting from dramatic situations rather than 
just the essential sign of the emotions resulting 
from the intelligent realization of the meaning 
of the situation; or second, recognizing the 
first danger, he falls into the simple intellectual 
reading of lines without sufficient emotional 
response. 

In either case the creative imagination of 
the hearer is not aroused and stimulated; in 
the first instance, because the appeal is made 
primarily to the physical eye and ear and the 

91 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

result is sensation; or, in the second place, 
too much is left to the intellect alone and the 
intellect alone never arouses the creative 
imagination ; there must be just enough action 
and color; there must be present in the 
reader's interpretation just the few essential 
signs of the emotion which the understanding 
both of the lines and of the dramatic situation 
has developed in the reader. Too many 
physical signs shut the door in his face; too 
few fail to get it open, the door being the in- 
telligence of the auditor. 

The reader's right appeal is made through 
the intelligence to the creative imagination; 
never to the physical senses or to sensation. 
If the intelligence of the auditor be considered 
the door of his house the creative imagination 
is the queen mistress and the senses are her 
maidservants and menservants. When the 
artist comes with his appeal and in answer to 
his knock the door is opened the mistress 
resents his dallying in the hallway to chuck 
the parlormaid under the chin; and if he does 
so dally he will probably get no farther than 

92 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the hallway and must be content to get his 
response from the servants' hall. 

Emotions which result from an act of the 
intelligence or from an appeal to intelligence 
are legitimate and true. If emotions result 
without such an appeal they spring from sen- 
sation and nerve excitement and are not 
pleasant to see nor profitable to experience. 



93 



Technique and Spontaneity 

TO the student of any art how much more 
attractive is the word spontaneity than 
the word technique! And this is as it 
should be. Of what use is technique in any 
art save as it finally enables one to be spon- 
taneous. Technique is only for the purpose 
of getting the material out of the way so that 
the vision in one mind may be shared with 
the brother mind. 

Training in the technique of any art does 
not mean slavery to convention in that art : it 
means training into an unerring and facile 
knowledge of how to handle the tools of that 
art; lacking which knowledge one's creative 
thought is never fully free to exercise its 
spontaneous life. 

A student once asked this question: sup- 
posing an artist or an actor without training 
could spontaneously give true expression to a 
character or to whatever was in the realm of 
his art, would not such a one be deserving of 

94 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

greater fame, and would he not produce a 
stronger revelation than the artist who had to 
be trained to do the same thing. 

I think it can truly be said that there is no 
record in the world's list of great artists, 
sculptors, musicians, actors, orators, of any 
such genius. Whoever has produced any- 
thing lasting and worthwhile has done it 
through hard work and rigorous training. 

The freedom and spontaneity of expression 
which we all crave is bound to be ours some- 
time and must be ours before we can do any 
original work, but it will not be the freedom 
we think it will be, and it will not come to us 
until we have mastered our tools. Drudgery 
and patience are essential to that desired end. 

The actor who is an adept in the technique 
of his art can be just as free as he chooses in 
his manner of depicting a character; that is 
his own problem and is a question of intelli- 
gence and devotion to truth, and he need not 
be bound by convention. The freedom and 
spontaneity in art, of which one hears too 
much, is never meant to apply to the student 

95 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

or the novice; they are not yet in the realm 
of art. Students, especially in the art of the 
spoken word, seem to think they must begin 
with freedom, when, as a matter of fact, free- 
dom is a result — an arrival; it comes after 
years of patient obedience and of experience ; 
it really is the last thing to be achieved. 

Training in fundamentals will start one 
well on the way to this freedom; nothing else 
will. Fundamentals are all an intelligent 
teacher can rightly claim to teach; three or 
four simple things, and the explanation of the 
why and wherefore of these simple things. 
The rest is all drill and practice, which is the 
only way these three or four simple things 
can be taught or can be learned. 

Our true art work will be done in the years 
to come when, with avenues cleared of ob- 
struction, with every agent of expression 
trained, obedient, and responsive, the creative 
mind recognizes its own magnificent freedom. 



9 6 



Audience 

A FRAGMENT OF A TALK BEFORE 
A CLASS 

ALL art implies and necessitates an audi- 
ence ; if the audience be not present in 
reality it is always imagined; further- 
more, the artist himself comprises the ob- 
server as well as the performer. The artistic 
effort, however, has not reached the art stage 
until it arrives at a harmonious and beautiful 
outward form which reflects the purpose and 
intelligence which produced its harmony and 
beauty; all previous stages are transitional 
and are only indicative that growth is going 
forward, yet during this transitional period — 
the studio period — the artist has constantly 
in his mind's eye the vision of the finished 
form. 

We will apply these statements directly to 
our own art. Here we are at work in the 
studio; our work is not at the finished stage, 
ready for the public eye; we are working 

97 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

towards our ideals; we are clearing away 
obstructions, ridding ourselves of super- 
fluities, training ourselves in the use of the 
tools of our craft. It is an interesting fact, 
but not generally recognized, that in every 
effort we make in our practice by ourselves, 
each one of us imagines his audience there 
before him listening to him, but listening to 
his finished production, although the work is far 
from being at that stage. 

I suppose every one of us here has had the 
experience of reciting before a few friends 
some selection on which he has worked faith- 
fully by himself until it seemed to have 
reached a fit stage for the eyes and ears of the 
audience and then, with the audience sup- 
plied, found the effort was without form and 
void; not necessarily because the friends said 
it was so but because he himself heard and 
saw himself through the ear and eye of his 
audience, and every tone and expression fell 
so far short of what he meant it to be or 
thought it would be that his heart failed him 

and discouragement followed. This experi- 

98 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

ence is the result of the presence of listeners 
who see truly the stage at which your work 
has arrived: while alone you were the audi- 
ence but you could not look at your work in 
process; you looked always at what you 
wanted it to be. That is right; otherwise 
there would be no growth. 

When the real audience-factor is supplied 
then you, yourself, see the work in its in- 
completeness, because you see it with the 
eyes of your audience and a true perspec- 
tive of your effort is presented to you and 
you can intelligently measure the distance 
between your accomplishment and your 
ideal. 

Here in the class we have the audience 
right before us, observing all our steps of 
growth, supplying the real audience-factor, 
which is so essential to the student of art, be- 
cause it makes him see clearly the distance 
between his effort and his ideal and in what 
direction he is falling short. You of the 
audience are also being trained in an ability 
to place the effort of the reader at its proper 

99 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

stage of development; you soon learn that 
you are not to criticise the rendering because 
it has not reached the ideal stage but rather 
to observe, sympathetically, the processes of 
growth. 



IOO 



The Word 

"WN the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God; the same was in the begin- 
ning with God." 

Art being man's chosen, selected expres- 
sion, in art man is reflecting what God does 
in His creation. Art is man's word, the body- 
ing forth of his idea. 

Let us apply John's statement to the ex- 
pressive act of man's mind, which is art : — 
In the beginning — the inception — of my 
thought dwelt its expression, and the ex- 
pression was with my thought, and the ex- 
pression was my thought, the same was in the 
beginning — the inception — with my thought. 
This statement, I believe, can be accepted as 
universally true. In art we are always striv- 
ing to speak in terms of mind from an under- 
standing to an understanding. Our task, our 
struggle, as well as our glory and our joy, is 
to make transparent the muddy avenues of 

101 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

the flesh, in spite of which we have to speak 
our word to the listening brother soul, so 
transparent that the sense and consciousness 
of the body disappear and the idea, the truth, 
the love, as they exist in one's thought, are 
seen in their own fitting embodiment. 

But how to do it? All right study of the 
spoken word has the solution of that problem 
for its end and aim. All technical training, the 
constant work with the instrument, which is 
body and voice, is in order that it, the instru- 
ment, may take on the thought's form and 
color, which is always there, existing in the 
thought, and with the thought and is the 
thought; and to prevent the substitution of 
the form and color of physical sensation, which 
always strives to bury the real thought. 

Do not let us get complicated and puzzled. 
It is all as simple as telling the truth. Given 
the poem, the character, the scene, the story, 
we study it until, through the creative imagi- 
nation, we have made it a statement in words 
of our own thought and emotion; or, rather, it 
has awakened into life in our minds the same 

102 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

thought and emotion of which it is the expres- 
sion. Then the words are really our words, 
and possess life, form and color in our minds. 
Our efforts to give this life, form and color 
their proper image and outward showing may, 
at first, result in muddy incoherency and 
chaotic expression, which almost put our men- 
tal life, form and color to sleep, almost bury 
them, even to our own consciousnesses; but 
over and over we try, criticising intelligently 
our own performance, doing away with some 
action which is the expression of habit and not 
at all in tune with our purpose, and doing 
what we know to be right, be it ever so little. 
Every right expression, be it ever so small, 
reacts on one's thought and makes the thought 
clearer and strengthens the emotion. One 
by one the non-essentials in one's effort at 
expression are dispensed with, and the essen- 
tials given with more and more authority, until 
we begin slowly to recognize a creation, the 
inward vision translated into its true form 
and color. 

It is all there in mind ; everything that ever 
103 



TALKS ON EXPRESSION 

was, is or ever will be. Great literature, gre' 
experiences, deep thought, the sight of great 
art, each and all awaken it; it struggles and 
yearns and beats for expression. 

The ability to make manifest the inward 
life, in its rightful form and expression, 
which it eternally possesses, constitutes the 
artist. Rendering the voice and body obe- 
dient servants will not suffice, unless the 
inward awakening is constantly taking place. 

Read great literature. It is the expr^oiuii. 
of the human heart in chosen terms; it is 
the picture of life in chosen terms, and will 
awaken the consciousness of that life in you. 

Awake, awake, to your kinship with the 
eternal! That is the trumpet call of all art. 



104 



W49 







'OK 




■A v 



*. - • ■ • a" 

■v . « • 









s 9 *& 







*> 



<W> 












c^n 



£ % 







* v .°^>. ~* C w ♦* 



*^. V 



















, •o 









"V.^ 







v oV* 







V 







*♦-* 



